Gunshots in the Rain
by Allyn Night
Summary: Haruhi Fujioka is faced with a past that she'd rather forget, one that puts everyone around her in grave danger. Who's coming after her? Is there anyone that can help her? And just why is she so afraid of thunder? Read to find out! Full summary inside.
1. Prologue

**Me: Well, I can honestly say that I have no idea where this came from. Last night, I was reading fanfiction and thought to myself, "You know what, I think I'll write an angsty story about Haruhi." And since finals are done and the semester is FINALLY over, I sat down and started to write. This story is going to be very different than the other ones I'm writing, one of which is a comedy and the other will likely end up a comedy. That is, if Sammy will ever give me the next chapter. *coughcoughWrite the dang chapter!!coughcough*Anyways, that's enough of my babbling, which means it's time for...**

**THE DISCLAIMER!!!!! I do not now, nor will I ever, *crosses fingers behind back* own Ouran High School Host Club. All I own is the plot and any OC's that might possibly come up. But I swear, when I'm ruler of this planet, I will forever eliminate these wretched disclaimers! (Along with Mondays.)**

**Full Summary: Everything is as normal as ever for Haruhi Fujioka at the host club, until she receives a strange message from someone she'd rather forget. Faced with the past that she's tried desperately to put behind her, she realizes that things are about to get very dangerous, very fast. Knowing that the lives of both herself and those around her are at risk, she has to find a way to stop this person and put an end to the nightmare that she's been living for so long. Who can help her? Who is this person? What happened to Haruhi so long ago? And just why is she so afraid of thunder? **

* * *

Haruhi POV:

The last bell of the day sounded, and with a sigh, I packed my things. All too soon, I would be faced with another afternoon spent being fawned over by a bunch of girls and dragged into the insanity that was the host club. Although, I must admit that I do have a lot of fun there, and the other members have become my closest friends. Tamaki, Kyoya, Honey, Mori, and even those doppelgangers known as Hikaru and Kaoru. Speaking of, I felt the two of them drape themselves over my shoulders, with what I am sure are Cheshire cat grins on their faces. As we started down the familiar route to the third music room where the host club activities are held, the intercom droned:

"Haruhi Fujioka, please report to the main office immediately. That will be all."

"Ooh, Haruhi's in _trouble_!!" the twins sang out.

"You don't know that. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get going."

"Aw, can we come?" They looked at me with hopeful eyes. Knowing them, even if I told them no, they would just end up following me. I guess I have no choice.

"Fine, you can come, as long as you don't cause trouble."

"Don't worry, we _promise_ to be good." they said, wearing identical smirks. Somehow, I had a hard time believing them.

* * *

When we got to the office, I walked in and the twins waited outside. There stood none other than chairman of the school board (as well as Tamaki's father), Mr. Suoh.

"Hello again, Haruhi. It's always nice to see you. How have your studies been going?"

"Very well, sir." I said, sitting across from him. "But if you don't mind me asking, why am I here?"

"Ah yes, of course. You see, I'm actually here to deliver this to you. A man gave it to me earlier, and said that it was important that you receive it. I don't know who he was, but he did tell me that he knew you from a while ago. Don't worry, I didn't read it." The chairman explained, handing me a folded piece of paper with my name written sloppily on the front. For some reason, this note gave me a feeling of unease, and I almost didn't open it. Taking a breath, though, I unfolded the paper to find a short message written in the same messy scrawl as the front. It said:

_**I'm coming back for you, little chickie, you and your old man both.  
**__**You can't hide forever. Soon this game of cat-and mouse will be over.  
**__**Remember: watch out for those storms.  
**__**They can be dangerous.**_

I froze. I knew instantly what those seemingly harmless words meant, and though the note wasn't signed, I knew exactly who sent it. A million different emotions flooded through me. Fear, shock, disbelief, guilt. But most of all, pain. I tried so hard to bury the past and move forward, but it seemed like it was all rushing back. My mind had gone numb, and I did the only thing I could.

I ran.

I sprinted out of the office and through the building, trying to escape all of the feelings that had built up over the past ten years. All of the feelings that were flowing through me now as if a dam had been broken. I was vaguely aware of the twins at my heels, shouting my name and trying to get me stop, but at that point I couldn't bring myself to care. I raced outside, only just noticing the pouring rain, the storm raging all around me. I had unintentionally run straight into the thing that I was trying to get away from, the nightmare that's been haunting me for so long. The crashing sound of gunshots in the rain.

* * *

**Me: Well, there you have it, my attempt at writing a prologue for a serious story. The chapters will get longer, and I will update fairly often. For those of you who don't know, my policy on reviews is that you can review if you want to, but I'm not going to make you. How often I update doesn't have anything to do with the number of reviews I get, just my motivation. But they do make me feel very special, and I absolutely love getting them. Isn't that right, Ed?**

**Ed: What the hell am I doing here?! I'm not even in this anime/manga!!**

**Me: Yeah, but I was watching FMA on TV when I was writing this, so I figured you should be here.**

**Ed: Well, what am I supposed to do?**

**Me: Hm...dance shrimp!!!**

**Riza: *starts shooting at Ed's feet***

**Me: By the way, I thought I made it pretty clear what the gunshots in the rain were supposed to be, but just in case you didn't get it, I'll give you a hint: Episodes 8 and 16 of the anime feature it. Alright, I think that's it. Thanks for reading!!**

**Ed: SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!**

**Me: Hehe, nothing to see here. *closes curtain that appears out of nowhere***


	2. Chapter 1

**Me: Yes!! Another chapter! As sick as it sounds, I'm having a lot of fun writing Haruhi and her amazingly depressing and deadly past. And I don't actually hate her, but she doesn't show a lot of emotion when it comes to sadness or joy, so I felt like she needed this. Um...I don't really know what to say now.**

**Ed: Tell them about the video you posted, like, five seconds ago.**

**Me: It was longer than that, baka. Jezz, shorty, learn how to tell time. ;P**

**Ed: Don't call me small!! I'll rip off your feet and stick 'em on your head!!!!! Goes into random, spastic fit.**

**Me: Uh-oh. Alright, you go read the chapter, and I'll get the valium. I'm not entirely sure if that's what he needs, but valium makes people say funny things. :D We'll continue with announcements at the end.**

* * *

Haruhi ran across the muddied fields as fast as she could, using her hands to desperately try to block out the sounds of the thunder. And yet each time the sky lit up and another crack of thunder sounded, she refused to stop. In fact, this only persuaded her to go faster, in a vain attempt to escape the memories that she had buried so long ago. In her mind, she wasn't running through the mud across the grounds of Ouran Academy. Instead, she was reliving _that_ day, the day everything went wrong. She wasn't a first year high school scholarship student, but a small, six year old girl, wanting nothing more than to be safe at home with her family. Everything she saw was a memory of that night, and it absolutely terrified her.

Hikaru and Kaoru were right on her tail, trying to get her to slow down. This was the fastest they'd ever seen her run, and they were having a hard time keeping up. They would get so close, so that she was almost in reach, but never quite close enough. Eventually, Kaoru shouted at Hikaru to keep going after her, while he decided that he should call her father. The overbearing transvestite was bound to be worried sick about his daughter, seeing as it was getting late and she had yet to return home. However, after trying three times, the man just wasn't answering. That didn't seem right; it was only five, so her dad shouldn't have left for work yet, but the phone should've woken him up if he was sleeping. Kaoru suddenly had a very bad feeling about this, and his instincts haven't lied to him before. He couldn't shake the feeling that it had something to do with whatever had upset Haruhi so much that she would run from them like that. Or maybe she wasn't running from _them_ specifically, maybe she was running from something else, or maybe she was just running. Either way, he knew that this feeling wasn't going to go away. All he wanted to do now was find his brother and Haruhi and make sure that everything was okay. Even though he was positive that it wasn't.

Hikaru felt like he couldn't breathe. He was trying as hard as he possibly could to catch up to her, but she kept pulling ahead. He hated seeing her like this, so terrified. But as much as it pained him for her to be so scared, he couldn't do anything about it until she stopped running. Dammit! He hated feeling so powerless, especially when _she_ was involved. Who was he kidding? The only time he _did_ feel powerless was when she was involved. His looks, money, social status; none of it had any effect on her. Actually, it had the opposite effect: _she_ was the one with power over _him_. Though it wasn't something he cared to admit, he would jump through hoops for the young brunette. He would get her anything she wanted, if she would only ask. But that was the thing. Because it's Haruhi we're talking about, she wouldn't. She would insist that she could handle things on her own, and refuse any help offered. This time was different, though. This time she needed him, and he intended to help her whether she liked it or not.

With a sudden burst of adrenalin, Hikaru surged forward, grabbing Haruhi by the waist. As a result, he ended up pulling the two of them to the ground, right into the mud. Had this been an ordinary day, Hikaru would've complained non-stop about being covered in "filthy mud." (As if any mud is actually _clean_.) Today, however, was anything but ordinary, and any thoughts of that quickly left his mind. Instead, he turned his attention to the small girl he now held in his arms. His heart nearly broke at the sight. Haruhi had curled herself into a ball, trying to be as small as the human body would allow. Her hands still clutched her ears, and her eyes were tightly shut as tears streamed down her face. Her small frame was shaking terribly, and she kept whimpering and saying, "Go away, please. Just don't hurt me." It made Hikaru want to curl up and sob with her. But he couldn't do that right now. Right now Haruhi needed him, and he was going to make this better if it killed him.

"Haruhi. Haruhi, listen to me! It's me, Hikaru! Dammit!!" Hikaru wasn't an idiot. He knew that she was off in her own little world, not seeing what was going on around her. The problem was getting her out of it, and unfortunately, there didn't seem to be a gentle way to do it. He'd already tried shouting her name, but she wasn't hearing him, and shaking her just seemed to make things worse. Becoming desperate, he tried the only thing he could think of, and knew that he would hate himself for it later.

He slapped her.

Of course, he didn't do it hard enough to hurt her, just to wake her up. He knew that he would never let himself intentionally hurt her, but even so, he felt horrible about it. It reminded him of that day in Karuizawa, the day of their first date. She was the one to slap him that time, but it didn't matter in his mind. All that mattered was that he hurt her that day by insulting her friend and leaving her alone in a thunderstorm, her greatest fear. He was so engrossed in these thoughts of self-hatred that he failed to notice that Haruhi had in fact snapped out of it, and was now blinking up at him warily, with a disoriented expression. Even in her current state, she didn't miss the fact that Hikaru looked like he was about to cry. She might've thought that he was already crying, had it not been for the fact that both of them were soaked to the bone and quite muddy. She hesitantly tried using her voice.

"H-Hikaru?" Hikaru immediately snapped his head towards her. He'd been so caught up in thinking about how he slapped her, that he'd forgotten to check if slapping her had actually _worked._

"Hikaru, where are we? What happened?" She asked, in a scared tone. Another bolt of lightning, and the sound of thunder filled the sky. Haruhi jumped, snuggling closer to Hikaru. She buried her face in his chest, whimpering. Hikaru finally got an ounce of common sense, and realized that they both needed to get inside and out of this storm. He picked her up bridal style, and if she noticed, she didn't say anything. At this point, they were a long way from the third music room, so Hikaru brought her to the closest building he could find. As it happened, the closest building was the teacher's lounge. Haruhi had fallen asleep in Hikaru's arms on the way, so he walked over to the couch closest to the heater and laid her down. He considered giving her his jacket, but seeing as it was soaking wet, he doubted it would do much good. After removing both his and Haruhi's jacket and hanging them to dry, he instead covered her with a blanket that he found in the storage closet Once he made sure she was settled, he went to the other side of the room and made a frantic phone call to his brother.

"Hikaru?" Kaoru asked, as he answered the phone. His voice, as so often is the case, was a perfect mirror of Hikaru's own emotions. In this case, worry, panic and fear.

"Kaoru, where are you?"

"I should be asking you the same thing. I don't hear any rain, so I assume you're inside. Is Haruhi with you?"

"OF COURSE SHE'S WITH ME, BAKA!! I WOULDN'T JUST LEAVE HER OUT THERE!!!" He felt bad for yelling at his brother, but with all the stress he was under, he couldn't seem to help it. He spoke again in a much softer voice.

"We're in the teachers lounge on the east side of the school. Haruhi's sleeping."

"Okay. Listen, Hikaru, I'm worried about something." As Kaoru explained the situation with Haruhi's father, the worry on Hikaru's face became more and more evident. He knew it was probably nothing. Maybe Ranka went shopping. Or, though it was unlikely, maybe he had a date. Even so, the twins were worried. Kaoru had already called a car to come pick them up, and he would tell the driver where to go as he headed to the teachers lounge. Hikaru went over to the couch and slid in next to Haruhi, wrapping his arms around her slowly warming body. It was comforting, holding her like this, and he knew that they would soon both be needing all the comfort they could get. But for now, all they could do was wait.

* * *

**Me: Aw! They're so cute!! What do you think, pipsqueak?**

**Ed: *Hopped up on Valium* I'm not short, I'm fun-sized!!**

**Me: *Snickers* Sure you are, Ed. Anyways, about the video he mentioned before. I made a youtube video to go with this chapter! It's pretty good, too, if I do say so myself. So you guys should definitely check it out. Here's the link: (It's y o u t u b e, but fanfiction's being stupid and it keeps messing up the link)  
.com/watch?v=dMPzoU-z588  
It's an AMV to the song Stand in the Rain, and it would mean a lot to me if you guys would give me feedback on it. *Tamaki puppy eyes* Pretty please? Oh, and guess what? I- Sammy, did you get into the Valium again?!**

**Sammy: Oh Iggy, I love you THIIIIIIS much!**

**Me: This seems oddly familiar.**

**Iggy: Yeah, kinda creepy.**

**Me: Oh well, I forgot what I was going to say before. So until next time, peoples! Bye!!**


End file.
